He estimated that a kilogram of primary titanium metal is about 20 times more expensive than an equivalent-quality steel, because it requires so much more energy to produce — though Fang and other scientists are working to invent less energy-intensive methods.
Titanium occurs in the earth’s crust mainly in the form of ilmenite, a heavy, opaque mineral that’s primarily mined in China, Mozambique, South Africa, and Canada. As a chemical element, titanium rapidly reacts with oxygen in the air, which creates the compound titanium dioxide. To separate the oxygen, companies use what’s known as the Kroll process.
To start, titanium ore is heated to 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit and reacted with chlorine gas and carbon-rich petroleum “coke.” This step yields a liquid chemical, titanium tetrachloride, and also produces carbon dioxide as a byproduct (similar to how blast furnaces for ironmaking release CO2). The liquid chemical then undergoes another treatment using molten magnesium, which results in porous, spongelike pure titanium metal.
The sponge is later crushed and melted into ingots, coils, and bars — the types of products that Timet plans to make at its solar-powered Ravenswood plant — which are later shaped into finished products.
The United States hasn’t produced its own titanium sponge since 2020, when Timet closed the country’s last remaining production line in Henderson, Nevada, though the company still melts titanium there. Today, the U.S. imports most of its titanium sponge supply from Japan and, to a lesser extent, from Kazakhstan.
Competition from lower-cost imports and slumping metal prices globally made it difficult for U.S. producers to keep making sponge domestically. Rising energy costs also strained operations — as they have for other energy-intensive industries, including domestic aluminum production. When Century Aluminum finally shuttered its smelter in Ravenswood in 2015, the company cited high electricity prices as one of the main reasons.
Curbing costs and CO2 emissions from titanium
Finding cleaner sources of electricity to power titanium facilities could help to control and potentially reduce costs associated with producing titanium products. But companies and researchers are also developing alternative techniques for making titanium that aim to dramatically reduce energy use and curb carbon dioxide emissions across the supply chain.
At the University of Utah, Fang developed a novel thermochemical process that uses hydrogen to separate titanium from oxygen at relatively low temperatures, and in a fraction of the time that conventional methods take. Notably, the process can use scrap metal to produce high-purity titanium, sidestepping the need for raw minerals and eliminating several other energy-intensive steps.
On a life-cycle basis, the hydrogen assisted metallothermic reduction (HAMR) process can reduce CO2 emissions from titanium production by anywhere from 50 to 95 percent, depending on the final product, when compared to conventional methods.
Fang’s research team received around $7 million in total federal funding to develop the HAMR process, including from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy. The North Carolina–based company IperionX later acquired both the technology and a pilot plant in Utah, which can produce about 2 metric tons of titanium per year, mainly for prototypes.
Next month, IperionX plans to commission operations at its first commercial-scale facility in Halifax County, Virginia, which will process about 125 metric tons of titanium per year. The company received a $12.7 million grant from the Department of Defense for the new facility and will produce titanium products for potential customers including Ford, Lockheed Martin, and GKN Aerospace.
Dominic Allen, chief commercial officer for IperionX, said the company is working to “reshore” U.S. titanium production in part for national security reasons. Today, China and Russia together control around 70 percent of the world’s market for primary titanium. IperionX also hopes that by making less energy-intensive — and therefore less expensive — titanium domestically, the metal can expand into new markets, potentially replacing aluminum and stainless steel in vehicles and building materials.
“The titanium market is around $4 billion globally,” Allen said, adding that the global markets for aluminum and stainless steel are around $170 billion and $200 billion, respectively. “So if you can just take a fraction of those markets just on price alone, it’s going to be enormous growth in the titanium market from where it is today.”
In the meantime, titanium manufacturers are expanding to serve the existing market for the high-strength, lightweight metal — and, in Timet’s case, using clean energy as they scale up.
Along with its new plant in West Virginia, Timet operates titanium-melting plants in Nevada, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania. Timet’s two main U.S. competitors, ATI Materials and Howmet Aerospace, also operate melting furnaces in Ohio, North Carolina, and Washington state.
In Ravenswood, the “state-of-the-art” facility will allow Timet to address the growing demand for titanium products from the aerospace industry and other sectors, said Precision Castparts’ Dugan. The solar microgrid next door “provides a unique opportunity…to increase our titanium capacity using a renewable energy source,” he added.
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